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Presley statue prompts memories of meeting Elvis

May 26, 2010

Elvis Presley certainly left his mark on Hawai’i, or rather the image of Hawai’i he created in the minds of his moviegoers. And he was instrumental in raising funds and awareness for the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.

But it’s his 1973 “Aloha From Hawai’i Concert” — the first concert broadcast by satellite, said to have reached more than a billion viewers — that has earned the King a personalized marker in the islands: a bronze statue of his jump-suited likeness in front of the Neal Blaisdell Center arena, the concert’s venue (then called the Hawai’i International Center.)

A number of Hawai’i Insider readers (including Kit Lee of San Francisco and Betsy Putnam of the East Bay) recognized the significance of the statue and its location in the Sunday Quiz photo here.